One time Chief of Plans and Policy, Nigerian Army and Commander, Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), Major General Ishola Williams (rtd), has said that Nigerians need not panic over America making good its threat of military invasion to take out the terrorists, who have made a ring around some parts of the country.
Nigerians woke up on Friday morning to the news that the United States launched a missile at the hideout of the bandits in Sokoto, thereby taking out the bandits. There was so much apprehension in Jabo, Offa, Sokoto, and Kwara states, respectively, as the missile caused damage to buildings in those two areas.
Earlier, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph following President Donald Trump’s threat that he would order a military invasion to put an end to the insurgency, should the government not do anything to stop the mass killings in the country, General Williams has advised that there was no need to panic, as they know who they are after.
He said: “The Americans have a technology to be able to identify the people they need to take out. Every day, they collect information about what is happening in Nigeria-the counterinsurgency and so on. They know the people to take out if they come.”
However, he said that the intervention of the Americans may not necessarily lead to total defeat of the bad guys, citing Somalia as an example where, decades later, they are still dealing with Al- Shabab. He continued: “But the Somalian government is still under threat of Al – Shabab. Is that the solution to the problem? It is not! You cannot help a country to fight its own insurgency.
The people them selves must have the will to fight. That is why I am asking: Our military, police, and security agencies, do they have the will to fight and defeat Boko Haram, ISWAP, the bandits, and what have you?”
Besides, he said that America’s intervention in the fight against terror was not new, as they were involved in the war against terror during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, but they had to leave due to the leaking of information to Boko Haram.
He said: “They were here before; they had been here before the whole thing became what it is. They were supporting the Nigerian military; they also supported the Joint MultiNational Task Force headquartered in Ndjamena. Why did that support stop?
It stopped because they were leaking intelligence to Boko Haram. “Have we ensured that there are no moles in your intelligence system? They have not been able to do that. If the Americans come now, how do they prevent the intelligence they provide to the army or the Nigerian military as a whole from being leaked?” he asked.
It is on the premise of this that he wants the Nigerian government to do all it can to ensure that the insurgents are defeated once and for all by going after their sponsors as well as tracking what they do with the huge sums of ransom they collect, whenever they abduct people, including attacks on schools.
He said: “Those people have a lot of money, and I have also been asking, where do they keep the money? Where do they spend the money? What do they do with the money? Then you ask yourself, do we have an intelligence system in this country? The president, too, is not asking the same question.”
